I understand that if a large army approaches another army while it is still preparing for a siege, they might be able to turn around and meet the opposing force away from the location being besieged - this is how it works now.
I find the existing "Break in to help the defenders" system to be simplistic and anti-immersive: it kills off an arbitrary & random number of your troops, then places you in the castle - it breaks the rule of "show, don't tell". Perhaps a scene similar to how when defenders retreat to the keep you go in with select companions and soldiers to defeat them: a night-time scene of pushing past a number of attackers and getting to the gate might be more interesting. That's not my main point here however.
If the hostile army is currently in an active siege battle with the garrison & militia, then I think attacking them, the "Assault the siege camp" option, should place the player on the same castle/town map as usual, with the hostile army attacking the walls, defenders in the castle, and player army coming in from the rear. I think this would be far more dynamic & interesting than just having a typical head to head conflict on a countryside map.
It might be necessary/appropriate to expand the available landscape of the castle & town maps to accommodate this, so the player isn't spawning effectively on top of the hostile army, but the map size should still be comparable to most other scenes.
I find the existing "Break in to help the defenders" system to be simplistic and anti-immersive: it kills off an arbitrary & random number of your troops, then places you in the castle - it breaks the rule of "show, don't tell". Perhaps a scene similar to how when defenders retreat to the keep you go in with select companions and soldiers to defeat them: a night-time scene of pushing past a number of attackers and getting to the gate might be more interesting. That's not my main point here however.
If the hostile army is currently in an active siege battle with the garrison & militia, then I think attacking them, the "Assault the siege camp" option, should place the player on the same castle/town map as usual, with the hostile army attacking the walls, defenders in the castle, and player army coming in from the rear. I think this would be far more dynamic & interesting than just having a typical head to head conflict on a countryside map.
It might be necessary/appropriate to expand the available landscape of the castle & town maps to accommodate this, so the player isn't spawning effectively on top of the hostile army, but the map size should still be comparable to most other scenes.
